Free Literature Review On Primary Sources Analysis

The Wheeling, West Virginia speech by Senator Joseph McCarthy, then the head of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1950, was a seminal moment in the Red Scare of the 1950s. The author himself was a participant of the events of which he discussed, as he was a noted political figure during the American retaliation against Communism in the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War. McCarthy, as opposed to the Communists to which he refers, is a rich, middle-aged white Christian man in a position of authority within the United States government at the time of this speech. His primary claim to fame within American politics in history is heading the aforementioned HUAC, which was responsible for the Communist witch-hunts throughout the Cold War (resulting in the ‘blacklisting’ of many noted individuals, chiefly in the arts and film/TV industry, for being Communists and/or homosexuals). This particular source plays intimately into this narrative, as it was one of the chief examples of anti-Communist rhetoric that came to represent McCarthy and his campaign.
The source itself is a transcription of the aforementioned speech, made in Wheeling, West Virginia by McCarthy in February of 1950, whose purpose was to drum up panic and fear about Communists being in the American midst. Its intended audience was the average American citizen – someone who likely prospered in the late 1940s and into the 1950s, and who was terrified at the prospect of the Cold War being won by Russia and allowing Communists to take over. With this speech, McCarthy hoped to frighten the American public into providing public support for his crusade and contribute to it through heavy-handed implications that Communists had already infiltrated the government. Because of its nature as an inflammatory speech, it had the effect of drumming up emotions in a much more immediate sense (and could rely more on broad statements and generalizations) than an article or other written expression of the same ideas.
This source is extremely helpful for learning the specific attitudes related to anti-Communism during the Red Scare in America. McCarthy’s religious framing of the issue appeals to America as a Christian nation under attack: “Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity.” One of his most prominent tactics is his insistence on the urgency of the issue, and the vulnerable position America is in, nothing that “the chips are down – they are truly down” Little can be truly learned about Communism in the work, apart from the dubious figure of 57 names of important people in the Communist party.
In the speech, McCarthy reveals his rampant and inflammatory bias against Communists in several ways, many already mentioned (the negative connotation between Communism and atheism, the depiction of America as being on the losing side of the Communist takeover). This bias is very limiting and misleading, as it does very little to help us understand the issue of Communism and the Cold War, opting instead for inflammatory rhetoric that does little. As a source, McCarthy is revealed to be very unreliable given his emphasis on pathos over logic, which results in his particular information revealing more about anti-Communist hysteria and its foolishness than anything truthful regarding the relationship between Communism and the United States. Historians can overcome their own biases by looking at the issue more objectively; however, the author introducing this particular speech notes the specific and factual ways in which McCarthy was wrong (“the numbers he cited fluctuatedand never materialized into a single indictment for espionage”).

Works Cited

Edwin R. Bayley, Joe McCarthy and the Press (University of Wisconsin Press, 1981).
Joseph McCarthy, Speech Delivered in Wheeling, West Virginia (February 9, 1950), p. 822.